ZeddaZogenau

The time for exams is finally over! Four young graphic designers have completed their four-year training. Now it's time to prove themselves in the independent advertising industry in the metropolis of Berlin. Since that isn't so easy, the four friends set up a joint advertising company without revealing their identity as female advertising graphic designers. But the four young women have not reckoned with love and the tempting life as a wife and mother.

In 1938, the aspiring Swedish actress Ingrid BERGMAN was to shoot her only film at Europe's leading film company UFA in Berlin, which was already dominated by National Socialism. With her almost accent-free German, Ingrid BERGMAN's role as Marianne is a great asset to the lightly accented film comedy. BERGMAN is relieved of the burden of asserting herself as a woman in a male-dominated industry. Her colleagues Sabine PETERS and Carsta LÖCK escape to the harbor of marriage with obvious relief, while Ursula HERKING's great career as a painter was written into the script.

Of course, even a rising world star like Ingrid BERGMAN, who has won three OSCARs, doesn't stay alone for long in a film like this. Her sweetheart is played by Hans SÖHNKER, who, as a professor of graphic design, naturally chooses the most beautiful student. Leo SLEZAK and Erich PONTO also appear in other roles.

After this film, BERGMAN moved on to Hollywood, and the rest is film history. Nevertheless, the film is worth watching just for the Berlin pictures with the world star. And as a light drama about a working woman, the role played by Ingrid BERGMAN is reminiscent of later comedies that Doris DAY (as an interior designer in PILLOW TALK or an advertising professional in LOVER COME BACK) would shoot in Hollywood.

Not only recommended for nostalgics!

In this exciting spy film, the dagger in her cloak is worn by the German-British actress Lilli PALMER (1914 - 1986) and not the main actor Gary COOPER. And Lilli PALMER, as an Italian partisan, only appears about 30 minutes into the film. It is about a spy mission by the nuclear physicist Alvah Jensen (Gary COOPER), who is supposed to find out how far the National Socialists have come in building their atomic bomb. To do this, Gary COOPER even has to say a few words of German! With the help of various helpers (Vladimir SOKOLOFF and Helene THIMIG), he finds out a lot, but then suddenly has to go into hiding. He is helped by the capable partisan Gina (Lilli PALMER), who had to exchange her youthful tenderness for a relentless willingness to fight. But this rough exterior cannot last long with a man who even looks after little kittens.

The successful German director Fritz LANG (METROPOLIS / M / DOCTOR MABUSE) has directed a very exciting spy film for WARNER BROTHERS, which incorporates the confusion of the situation at the time well and coherently into its plot. For Lilli PALMER, who had already made several British films and was already married to Rex HARRISON, this role was the first stepping stone to Hollywood.

Other roles are played by Robert ALDA and Ludwig STÖSSEL. At the very end of the film, the young Lex BARKER also appears as a soldier rescued by PALMER and COOPER.

Many users of the global streaming service NETFLIX are now regularly disappointed when an English-language original film is released there. However, interesting discoveries can be made every now and then in non-English-language works. This is the case with the Italian film IL TRENO DEI BAMBINI by Cristina COMENCINI, which has been available on the streamer for a few weeks.

The orchestra musician Amerigo Speranza (Stefano ACCORSI, known from the quality series 1992/1993/1994) learns of the death of his mother in Naples in 1994. He then remembers his turbulent childhood in the completely impoverished Naples of 1946. As the child of a single mother (Serena ROSSI), he had to make a living surrounded by other children with odd jobs and black market fraud. Hunger, poverty and neglect were not empty words. But the opportunity to spend the winter with communist party members in northern Italy was not readily accepted. After all, the children, who were deeply religious, were afraid of being roasted in the oven by the communists. Amerigo (Christian CERVONE) and his friends reluctantly board the "children's train" heading north. But the encounter with his foster mother Derna (Barbara RONCHI) there will change Amerigo's life forever.

The Italian director Cristina COMENCINI (OSCAR 2006: ACADEMY AWARD nomination for LA BESTIA NEL CUORE) has created a warm-hearted and socially critical film about an event that had been forgotten even in Italy itself. Her father Luigi COMENCINI was also a film director and was awarded the Silver Bear at the BERLINALE in 1954 for PANE, AMORE E FANTASIA (with Gina LOLLOBRIGIDA and Vittorio De SICA).

If you liked TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY by Paola CORTELLESI and enjoyed reading the novel tetralogy by Elena FERRANTE (My Brilliant Friend), you shouldn't miss this film!